Facipulation...

Whilst coaching a client in the city this week, he made a comment that made me think. He was trying to solve an ambiguous dilemma, so I did what I thought all good coaches would do. Get the client to look at the problem from a whole series of different perspectives and to unpack their current problem solving approach on a non-agenda driven basis (from me).

Anyway at the end of the session the client said he had never had such a thought provoking 'workout'.

Now I don't say this for purposes of self-aggrandizement or self promotion. The issue is that the client has a regular coach (I coach for ambiguous and high emotional impact situations). It would appear that his regular coach moves him into a solution in what sounds like an 'I know best, this is what you should be doing', mentoring style approach.

So I did some checking with other clients who have coaches and it would appear that this is a very frequent approach taken by a number of performance coaches. One client sounded a little surprised at my questioning and said "Of course my coach facilitates me to the right solution, we pay them to give us good advice".

I have seen similar approaches in workshops where participants are 'facilitated' to the 'right' answer according to the trainers.

"Facipulation (v) - Using the tools and techniques of facilitation to manipulate a pre-existing and known outcome or solution in the mind of the 'facipulator' in a way that makes it look and feel like the 'facipulated' constructed their own answer."